Gilead

I just finished a wonderful book called Gilead by Marylin Robinson. It is quickly climbing my list of favorite books. The book captures the inner monologue of a dying man in a long letter to his young son. It's really beautiful. Here is one of my favorite sections. I don't have children but I just thought this was profound, the way it's said.

"The story of Hagar and Ishmael came to mind while I was praying this morning, and I found a great assurance in it. The story says that it is not only the father a of a child who cares for it’s life, who protects its mother , and it says that even if the mother can’t find a way to provide for it, or herself, provision will be made. At that level it is a story full of comfort. That is how life goes-- we send our children in to the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord’s. I need to bear this in mind."